Pierre de Castelnau

Pierre de Castelnau (d. January 15, 1208), French ecclesiastic, was born in the diocese of Montpellier.

In 1199 he was archdeacon of Maguelonne, and was appointed by Pope Innocent III as one of the legates for the suppression of the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. [CathEncy|wstitle=Blessed Pierre de Castelnau]

In 1202, when a monk in the Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide, Narbonne, he was designated to similar work, first in Toulouse, and afterwards at Viviers and Montpellier.

In 1207 he was in the Rhone valley and in Provence, where he became involved in the strife between the count of Baux and Raymond, count of Toulouse, by one of whose agents he was assassinated on the 15th of January 1208. He was beatified in the year of his death by Pope Innocent III.

Notes

References

*Graham-Leigh, Elaine. "The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade". Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1 84383 129 5
*De la Bouillerie, "Le Bienheureux Pierre de Castelnau et les Albigeois au XIII' siècle" (Paris, 1866).